Aksel

While not always a requirement, transcriptions can be pretty valuable – it aids researchers, students, professionals, and practically everyone for their projects, dissertations, studies – among many other purposes. Because of this demand, several companies offer transcription work and started building their transcription empire. This has led to their rise over the past decades or so, sprouting like seeds planted on good soil.

Transcribing is not just all about hearing and typing what speakers say, so it’s not always a walk in the park. Turning an audio – especially a difficult one – into a legible document can be a tedious process, and that takes a toll. Usually, the success of the business comes from what their clients has to say. If they are pleased, a company can always expect a return customer, but if not, well, there may be plenty of ways to win them back.

Accuracy, turnaround, and pricing are the key factors as to why clients stay and trust the transcription company of their choosing. Undoubtedly, the transcribers working behind the scenes make or break the success of the outfit. Some rely on manual, human effort, while some companies offer automated transcription software, where the machine does the work through voice-to-text technology.

Still, many ask:

Should I choose automated transcription over human transcription?

Putting the key factors into play, let’s have an in-depth look into the pros and cons of each.

Turnaround and Cost

On-time delivery always leaves a positive impression. It’s undoubtedly important to consider whether a transcription company can deliver within your desired deadline, and that they can maintain punctuality, reliability, and most importantly, that you get your money’s worth. Timeliness to deadlines gives you full confidence that the transcription company can meet not only your demands, but also the demand of your work where you can put transcriptions into good and on-time use.

Transcript turnaround and cost go hand-in-hand together. The cost to request an accurate transcript could depend on the capabilities of a transcription service including their processing time. For rapid turnarounds, the fee to produce a transcript would be more expensive than ones set to be delivered at a much later date, and this scheme goes for both automated and traditional transcribing.

Since automated transcripts are machine-generated, they are quicker to accommodate rush requests and can deliver in an hour or maybe even less for short files. This puts automated transcription services at a huge advantage against human transcription – where it could take one, two, or even five days to convert an audio recording into a transcribed document.

Transcription companies on the other hand pay each transcriptionist for every transcription work they do, so part of the profit that they receive from their clients are then used to pay the transcriptionist. This makes their service a bit pricey. Besides that, the rate of each transcriptionist varies depending on their skills, level of experience, and the number of minutes or files that they can accommodate. The human transcriptionist route is then much more suitable for those who aren’t on a rush to get their transcripts back and would highly prefer to have a transcript with high accuracy.

Accuracy

Ever since the commercialization of speech-to-text, automated transcription services try time and again to vastly improve the accuracy of machine-generated transcripts. However, it’s still a pretty challenging feat to get a very accurate transcript from automated options, especially if they don’t utilize human editors to clean-up voice-to-text transcripts for quality check. Difficult recordings that bear muffled audio, multiple cross talks, and other unwanted audio issues would put the transcript quality made by automated machines at risk for poor standards and could potentially lead to client dissatisfaction especially if the documents are going to be used for important purposes.

While this isn’t always the case, people who would rather have their files transcribed this way must be prepared to gamble transcript quality over turnaround and pricing.

Human transcription on the other hand has more flexibility in terms of research and an in-depth or more contextual understanding on the topic being discussed in the recording – this is why most people say that automated transcription still requires the human touch. Human transcriptionists and proofreaders certainly put the quality of the finished product as great to almost perfect. The transcripts made by human transcriptionists are likely to be put through a series of proofing stages to make sure that the document is error-free.

The Verdict: Human or Automated?

Human and automated transcriptions both have their pros and cons – it’s just a matter of deciding which factors are a worthy trade-off. Is it turnaround? Accuracy? Cost? While most transcription services, human or automated, may say that they highly value all of these, it is still a necessary step as a consumer to carefully evaluate whether or not they can fulfill your long-term needs and if they’re truly bang for your buck.

Imagine yourself as a researcher hired by a company that sponsored a research. You show up 10 minutes early at the venue and soon, your interviewee arrives. The interview is about to begin but then you realize that an equipment you would use is missing – it could be a pen, source materials, audio recorder, or worse, you forgot everything! In order to avoid such mishaps, it’s always best to plan ahead and prepare everything.

Here are some useful ways or tools that an interviewer must prepare before, during, and after conducting interviews.

Scheduling and Coordinating the Interview

Tools to use: Google Calendar, mobile reminders, planner, organizers

First and foremost, the interviewer and the interviewee should agree to set an appointment when and where the interview would take place. The arrangement should be organized days before the actual meeting so both parties are comfortable and can allot the time to accommodate the event. Coordination is very vital in this stage for the interview. Proper communication between both parties should be observed.

If the interviewer plans to meet several parties to interview and the activity will be a whole day affair, then fatigue or exhaustion may come into play. Therefore, strategic planning for this type of scenario is advisable so one could assess beforehand how many subjects they can oblige during a day and the others could be scheduled some other time. If at any event one party decides to cancel, they should inform the other party immediately, so re-scheduling (or cancellations) can be done right away. Arranging the appointment through useful tools such as Google Calendar, setting a reminder on your mobile, or by simply just jotting it down on a traditional planner are effective ways to make sure the interview would never be missed.

Once the appointment has been arranged and both parties have finally met, it’s now time to conduct the interview. What better way to communicate nicely with one another during the session is by having it done in a setting where noise is very limited – not exactly very quiet, but at least a place where both the interviewer and the interviewee/s would be able to hear and understand each other very well. The exchange of thoughts and ideas would become smooth and effective if distractions were limited.

Preparing the questions beforehand would also be ideal. For job interviews, it’s best advised if you already know what you’re looking for in a candidate, so asking the right questions that are pivotal to the role they are applying for would be utilized. Open-ended questions are also important so the applicant’s answers could be expanded. Lastly, setting a calm and stress-free environment could also be an effective way in order to get the best answers from respondents. Offering a glass of water, explaining what types of questions are about to be expected, and just being friendly and casual all throughout would lessen the anxiety felt by the respondents and rapport would be established.

Some interviewers opt to have their interviews recorded rather than take copious notes. Although recording an interview is not mandatory, the real essence of why some do is that they can capture data from the interview as accurate as possible. This also allows interviewers, researchers, or moderators engage and focus better on the respondents and their answers and not get distracted while writing notes. Market research interviewers typically like their sessions recorded so they can go back and re-listen to the things mentioned by their subjects while they analyze and document them for reporting. In this case, it is very effective for an interviewer to have an access to a room with very minimal to almost zero background noise so everything can be taped clearly for more effective use.

Smartphones nowadays offer a variety of tools and apps that make our lives easier, and voice recording is one of the many built-in features that is essential when recording interviews. While using a smartphone to record is the most accessible option, a few still prefer to use external microphones attached to different devices when recording very long sessions or interviews. Some researchers also conduct their sessions inside a conference room with built-in voice recorders or an analog conference phone to record meetings; while some who conduct their interviews online, record their conversations or discussions through Adobe Connect or Skype.

Transcription is useful to people for all kinds of purposes whether personal or professional. It can be used for education, legal, business, medical, market research, and many other purposes. Transcribing dictations or recordings are typically done by general transcriptionists, although in some specialized cases, a license is required for an individual to transcribe recordings especially if the document is to be used for legal or medical purposes.

Some researchers may prefer to do the transcription by themselves while others approach different transcription companies to do the work for them. Interview transcriptions can either be manual or automated. Machine transcription provides faster turnaround but the accuracy may be subpar which in turn affects the quality and unreliability of data. Therefore, many still prefer manual transcribing work since it is processed by experienced or seasoned transcriptionists with guaranteed accuracy and can produce quality outputs. Manual transcribers often use a system or a program that helps them seamlessly play the audio as they type. These transcription programs enable them to modify the speed of the audio to suit their comprehension and typing speed. Other important functions that a transcription program needs to have are the rewind, pause, stop, and fast forward buttons typically programmed with hotkeys for easier and faster use.

An example of free transcription software that has these capabilities is ExpressScribe. It also offers other helpful tools to make a transcriptionist’s job easier such as audio boost, minimizing background noises, and many others. Once done, the transcriber can then send soft copy of the transcripts either through email or print them for physical mail.

Once the researcher/interviewer has got hold of all the necessary things they need, data collection then takes place. For job interviews, a recruiter gathers all the information they have acquired during the interview. This process is paramount in order for the company to completely assess the applicant’s education and employment history, especially if they are choosing among multiple candidates. Furthermore, companies that collate and store other applicant profiles can still get in touch with the other deserving candidates for other job offers in their organization. In the case of market, medical, and academic researches, documentation of interviews would bring about statistics and hypothesis for the subject they are studying. Their fact-finding or analysis can also be archived as a basis for future research work.

All in all, these tools can be utilized to make each and every interview a success. Interviews are very important after all, as it improves the capabilities of the researcher or interviewer’s information-seeking and decision making skills; and for their respondents to be open and candid as they share their knowledge and expertise to others.

The Buddha once said, “Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” Every individual has their own standards about morals, ethics, culture, and practices, and these are greatly influenced by how they are raised or by their faith.

People turn to religion to cope with their everyday lives. Feeling nervous about a job interview or an exam? You pray. A family member is ill for days and you want them to recover soon? You pray. Hoping for a positive outcome for a scheduled surgery? You pray. Some even say grace during meal time and before going to bed. See, these are just some of the obvious, yet overlooked situations in our daily lives wherein faith is exercised.

Churches worldwide continue to multiply in order to facilitate growing numbers of their members who attend their worship services. Although the number of churches has grown exponentially, there can still be unforeseen circumstances where a member may be unable to attend regularly. However, thanks to modern technology, it’s now easier to catch up on what they may have missed – they can download podcasts, stream online, and more recently, supplement their devotion to their faith through the use of transcriptions.

Uses of Religious Transcription

Church expansion and spreading the gospel are the core reasons why church leaders and some members of their congregation reach out to people. Besides making tasks simpler and easier, sermon transcription provides a variety of benefits and can be used for various purposes. Below are just some of the most common uses of transcriptions for religious or spiritual organizations:

For religious leaders. Religious transcriptions are typically used by people who work or volunteer at churches. Religious leaders can use them to stress out important notes from past discussions in order to produce fresh, new concepts or to link one gospel to the other for future worship services.

For church scholars, theologians, and other students and researchers of religious studies. Church scholars or those who are studying theology also find religious transcriptions efficient to their research and studies by referencing insightful information through transcribed sermons by pastors, priests, or deacons. This method is also effective for those individuals or groups who are engaging in Bible studies.

For pastors or preachers looking to publish their work. Pastors also opt to use transcriptions if ever they plan on publishing books. Through their published work, sharing their sermons is a more efficient and effective way of reaching other people across the globe who may not be familiar of their preaching style. This could also help them become influencers and have people join their causes.

For sermon video captioning and subtitles. Some churches record their sermons in order to reach a wider congregation or to make video archives. Adding subtitles to sermon videos would benefit those members who are hard of hearing. It also allows them to better understand what the sermon or preaching is all about since they can read and better comprehend when everything is all laid out.

For quick research and referencing. Topics or issues that are discussed during worship vary from week to week. If a member has questions about what the bible says about certain situations, they can quickly go back and reference sermon transcripts they have on hand.

For the devoted church member. But of course, the most common and effective use of religious transcription though is for those who are unable to attend worship services. These are also perfect for those with impairments and disabilities. With this, they can still get their daily – if not weekly dose of spiritual nourishment.

Conclusion

Regardless of an individual’s denomination, be it Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, or other, the process of transcribing sermons or religious discussions is very useful because it serves not only active church-goers but also everyone else who would like to spread and influence others for the better of their neighbors.

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